We’re not against developers making money from their tweaks, or pursuing alternative routes of funding, but having a piece of nag-ware on your phone without any option to disable it is a major annoyance.
Unfold is a jailbreak tweak that we are huge fans of at iDownloadBlog, but unfortunately we learned that the tweak was programmed with an annoying behavior. After 500 uses, a message pops up asking for a donation, and the message repeats again after every 500th unlock. This wouldn’t be so bad if a donation disabled the message, but there’s no option for entering a subscription into the app…
What’s worse about this piece of nag-ware is it occurs during day-to-day use of the phone. Unannounced, repeating popup alerts on my phone, combined with usage tracking, does not fill me with confidence.
You can donate directly to Jonas Gessner, who is also the developer behind ProTube and Bridge, by clicking the PayPal link in Unfold’s page on Settings. While we’re not happy with permanent nag-ware, Unfold is a stunning UI modification.
What do you think are the best and worst ways to ask for donations for free apps? Share your thoughts in the comments section.
[Reddit]